She’s Strong, She’s Sexy, She’s Sandra Bullock

After I met Sandy for the first time, I remember thinking, This woman has been my friend for 100 years. I’d driven to Culver City, California, to meet her and discuss my romantic-comedy project The Proposal. Everybody arrives at a meeting like that with an agenda: You want to impress. You want to connect over the script. You want this person you’ve admired on film to be just as great in real life as you hoped she would be. I walked up to her trailer—she was on a movie set—and saw her dogs playing outside. She appeared in the doorway, a tornado of light, energy and happiness, and said, “Hi, I’m Sandy; come on in!” She made me feel so comfortable: We sat down, bantered back and forth, and found we had the exact same sense of humor—somehow the word vagina came out of my mouth within the first five minutes, and Sandy busted up laughing. She talked to me as if I’d known her for years, mentioning her husband, Jesse [James, founder of
a custom motorcycle company], as if we were picking up a conversation from the week before. I drove home, called the film’s producers and said, “I love her—I hope she feels the same.” And here we are.

On set and in real life, Sandy’s a roll-up-your-sleeves kind of girl: She never wanted to go to her trailer to rest, never tried to get out of anything. If we came across a scene that wasn’t working, she would sit at the monitor, trying to figure it out with every ounce of her being. If you talked about something you liked, the next day she’d find it for you. I mentioned this antique ring I had that once belonged to a woman during World War II. She tracked down a necklace from that time period and gave it to me. I thought, Who does that? But it’s not about the gifts—she pays attention to the people around her. Sandy loves her job but is not defined by it. And she knows how to have a life outside of Hollywood: She splits her time between L.A. and Austin, Texas, where she owns a popular bistro, Bess. She has a barn. She’s done a ton of good work for charities, like giving money to a New Orleans high school impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Hello, she even does her own home renovations, like tearing down walls with her bare hands! (OK, I might be exaggerating a bit.) But if I had to pinpoint what sets her apart, it’d be this: She’s humble. She’s real. It’s easy to lose yourself in this business, but Sandy hasn’t gotten swept up in any of it. See for yourself….

GLAMOUR: OK, let’s see what I have up my sleeve. The very first day of shooting, you said you had a vision of me dating a fisherman with his own fleet of ships, and that by the time we were finished making the movie, I’d be married to him. I had high hopes for this. What happened?

SANDRA BULLOCK: Well, Anne, I have to be honest with you and tell you that it is your fault: You were just a little too busy paying attention to my performance to make eye contact with the beefy fisherman.

GLAMOUR: Is that something that you like to do—set up your friends?

SANDRA BULLOCK: No. I did it only once: I met a girl at a photo shoot and said, “You’d be perfect for this guy I know.” Then I called him and said, “I swear to God, I have never done this before, but I met this girl and I know you guys would be perfect together.” He said he was going to call her but didn’t. One day he is going to run into her, and they are going to hit it off. I am convinced of it.

GLAMOUR: When you were single, did people try to set you up?

SANDRA BULLOCK: No.

GLAMOUR: So how did you meet Jesse?

SANDRA BULLOCK: You are asking very personal questions right off the bat, Anne Fletcher! I took my godson to visit his company, West Coast Choppers. I had an image of an obese guy with a handlebar mustache. [Laughs.]

GLAMOUR: One of the things that you said to me about Jesse being different than the other guys you’ve dated over the years is that you never judge a book by its cover.

SANDRA BULLOCK: But I did do that.

GLAMOUR: In the beginning, but then you got past it.

SANDRA BULLOCK: I think most of us are raised with preconceived notions of the choices we’re supposed to make. We waste so much time making decisions based on someone else’s idea of our happiness—what will make you a good citizen or a good wife or daughter or actress. Nobody says, “Just be happy—go be a cobbler or go live with goats.”

GLAMOUR: There aren’t that many women in this industry who will take the challenge of doing physical comedy, which you are amazing at.

SANDRA BULLOCK: I don’t know. I grew up [watching] Carol Burnett and Jerry Lewis, and they were brilliant. But a lot of times, girls are raised to be little princesses: Keep your legs crossed and your hands folded in your lap.

GLAMOUR: Who else has inspired you in the world of comedy—or life in general?

SANDRA BULLOCK: My parents were opera singers and voice teachers, so growing up, I admired musicians and dancers. I had a poster of [Russian ballet dancer] Rudolf Nureyev on my wall.

GLAMOUR: And something that you love is dance.

SANDRA BULLOCK: Yeah, and it’s funny, the other night I was talking to this man I’m sleeping with…but, as I told you, Anne Fletcher, I won’t talk about my personal life. Anyway, I said, “Isn’t it funny how you’ve never seen me do one of the things I love the most?”

GLAMOUR: Jesse’s never seen you dance?

SANDRA BULLOCK: I didn’t say it was Jesse…

GLAMOUR: OK—the man you are sleeping with has never seen you dance?

SANDRA BULLOCK: Never.

GLAMOUR: You do have this great life, and you really keep it separate. You have your family life. You have your love life. You have your businesses—all 62 of them. You have a flipping barn. It’s never ending!

SANDRA BULLOCK: That is true. I have the most bitching barn. I have a good life.

GLAMOUR: Not many people have the ability to separate their work life from their personal life, including myself. If they are in it, they are in it all the time.

SANDRA BULLOCK: I used to be like that. I was never the kind of girl who said, “One day, I am going to be a beautiful bride, and I am going to have a family.” I wanted to work and support myself and make my parents proud. All I did was work. I did three or four films a year, and felt like I was on a treadmill. Finally I said, “Nothing is exciting to me anymore.” So I took six months off, which turned into a year, and said, “God, I don’t miss it.” That’s when all kinds of interesting things crossed my path.

GLAMOUR: When you came back to work, you made some interesting choices, like Crash [which won the 2006 Oscar for best picture]. What made you pick The Proposal?

SANDRA BULLOCK: At first, I didn’t want to do it because they’d called it a “romantic comedy,” and I’d decided I was no longer doing those. Then I read the script and was pissed because I liked it so much. And then one of the first words out of your mouth was vagina. As soon as you opened your mouth, it was so aggravating because every element of the film seemed right…. I’d like to create a new category for women.

GLAMOUR: Like the buddy comedies Judd Apatow is so brilliantly doing.

SANDRA BULLOCK: I feel a huge responsibility to anyone who’s younger than me, in [helping her] take the road less traveled, or finding no road at all and blazing a new trail.

GLAMOUR: So what would you say to today’s young It Girls who are constantly partying and showing up late for work?

SANDRA BULLOCK: I would say if you are going to party, show up on time to work.

GLAMOUR: These girls are all starting to blend together. They’re not trying to be unique—it’s like they’re trying to be the same.

SANDRA BULLOCK: I did that at that age. All I wanted to do was just be like the other girls in my school. My mother was like, “Be original,” with her German accent and all. I was like, “Shut up, Helga!” All I wanted was a pair of Levi’s straight-leg jeans, and all my mom had for me was green velvet bell-bottoms from Germany. Guess what? Bell-bottoms were out. I got my ass whooped.

GLAMOUR: New topic. How do you manage to maintain some semblance of privacy without alienating your fans?

SANDRA BULLOCK: A friend of mine once said, “If you invite People magazine to the wedding, they should be allowed to come to the divorce.” If we’d wanted our marriage to be public, it would have been. Oh, the money we could have made! [Laughs.]

GLAMOUR: How would your dream interview read? What do you wish people would ask you—whether you’re wicked good in the sack?

SANDRA BULLOCK: I am a lover like no lover has ever loved before! [Laughs.] I do interviews because I have to promote my movies, which is easy when you are promoting a film you’re proud of. But I’ve done movies in which I was embarrassed by my performance, or might not have cared for a costar. Then I’d have to tell lies, like, “Oh, we love each other; everything was perfect.” So when I am proud of something like my work in The Proposal, I feel like a hypocrite, because I’ve said similar things about a film I didn’t like. But my job is not to talk smack about anything.

GLAMOUR: That’s why your job is hard.

SANDRA BULLOCK: This is why I dislike strongly—I’m trying not to use the word hate—doing magazine articles: My personality does not translate to print. People don’t read it as sarcasm, and it just comes off badly.

GLAMOUR: I’d asked if we could rehearse it first, because I didn’t want to have to camouflage the nakedness or shoot from the neck up. I explained this to you guys [Bullock and costar Ryan Reynolds], and both of you just looked at me for a beat. I had no idea what was going on in your brains.

SANDRA BULLOCK: You know why I looked hot? Because everyone was looking at Ryan. Our stuff was hanging in each other’s faces, and we didn’t care.

GLAMOUR: [Laughs.] You guys were so scientific about the whole thing, but you had to be, because nothing could show on camera. You had this little fake sack to cover things up—but the next thing you know, the robes were off and Ryan was unintentionally flashing everybody! Naked bodies. What does that remind me of?

SANDRA BULLOCK: The first real porn that you saw? They make porn for ladies, I hear. What do you think it is—women rubbing each other’s hair for a really long time? We get a really long shot of her shoes?

GLAMOUR: Look at that Dolce skirt! They’re pausing so you can read the label!

SANDRA BULLOCK: [Laughs.] But seriously, I wanted to do a good job because people are paying their hard-earned money to come and be entertained and surprised and to see my fabulous naked scene. And if there are no lines outside theaters on June 19, I’m going to be so pissed. I’m going to blame America!

GLAMOUR: You can blame Glamour.

SANDRA BULLOCK: [Laughs.] I’m going to blame Glamour.

GLAMOUR: On that note, where do you see yourself in 10 years?

SANDRA BULLOCK: I hope the breasts that I’ve ordered have arrived. I hope they invent a machine in which you type in the age you want to be, and it lifts and separates everything nonsurgically. [Pauses.] I would like to be healthy. And for everyone I love to be healthy. I hope I’m as content as I am now. If I die tomorrow, will I have gotten everything in the world I’ve ever wanted? No. But I will have gotten everything that’s made me happiest.